


The nature of rivalry

by Metabird (wheatear)



Series: Character dynamics [3]
Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV), Doctor Who (2005), Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones (TV), Multi-Fandom, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Doctor Who Season 12 Spoilers, Doctor Who Spoilers, Embedded Video, Game of Thrones Spoilers, Gen, Meta, Nonfiction, Relationship Study, Rivalry, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23108890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheatear/pseuds/Metabird
Summary: Rivals by definition are competing over something whether that's the throne, a job, a love interest, or a worldview. Who do we compete with? People in the same category as us, whatever that category is.A meta essay on why rivals are designed to match.
Relationships: Edith Crawley & Mary Crawley, Elijah Mikaelson & Klaus Mikaelson, Sansa Stark & Daenerys Targaryen, The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who)
Series: Character dynamics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654255
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	The nature of rivalry

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this meta last year and have added some extra commentary following Season 12 of Doctor Who.

I want to talk about rivals and the kinds of characters we see depicted as rivals in works of fiction. Every now and again I see complaints in fandom about why aren't these (usually female) characters being depicted as friends, why are they being pitted against each other, as if doing so is sexist.

As always, _Crazy Ex-Girlfriend_ has the perfect song for this:

It's not that I disagree with a desire to see more female friendships in fiction. I'm all for a variety of female relationships in fiction, whether that's friendship, romance, rivals, enemies, mothers and daughters, sisters – all of it.

But I think there's something about the nature of rivalry in particular that does explain why for example we saw Sansa and Daenerys having some very tense exchanges in Season 8 of _Game of Thrones_.

**The nature of rivalry**  
First, a definition of a rival:

_A person or thing competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field of activity._

And some examples of fictional rivals:

• The Doctor and the Master (Doctor Who)  
• Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr (X-Men)  
• Stefan and Damon Salvatore (The Vampire Diaries)  
• Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce (The Vampire Diaries)  
• Klaus and Elijah Mikaelson (The Vampire Diaries)  
• Squall Leonhart and Seifer Almasy (Final Fantasy VIII)  
• Sora and Riku (Kingdom Hearts)  
• Mary and Edith Crawley (Downton Abbey)  
• Rebecca Bunch and Valencia Perez (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend)  
• Noctis and Ardyn (Final Fantasy XV)  
• Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter)  
• Gamora and Nebula (MCU)  
• Thor and Loki (MCU)  
• Buffy and Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Some of these start off as rivals and their relationship evolves over time, but they all spend a significant amount of time competing over something. What do they have in common?

Answer: they're all **male/male and female/female rivalries.**

(There must be some male/female rivalries. Please bring me your counterexamples! But overall my suspicion is that rivals are more frequently the same sex.)

There are some other striking things about this list, like the number of sibling rivalries. Characters who grew up together or were in the same class at school. Characters with a similar powerset or who wield the same weapon. There's a reason for all of this.

**Rivals match.**

Rivals by definition are **competing** over something whether that's the throne, a job, a love interest, or a worldview. Who do we compete with? People in the same category as us, whatever that category is. Sex is one such category. You compete with the people who are most like you, who are working in the same field, or the same age, or living in the same neighbourhood. That's why there are so many sibling rivalries on the above list, because your siblings are literally your closest competitors. Siblings compete for the attention and affection of their parents, at school or the equivalent when they're growing up, and then for success in adult life.

So then why are all the sibling rivalries on this list brother/brother and sister/sister? Where are the brother/sister rivalries? Why does Klaus compete with Elijah, but not with Rebekah? It's because growing up their parents had different expectations of them. For example, Klaus and Elijah would have been in direct competition with each other to become warriors in the eyes of their father, but not with Rebekah who was not expected to learn how to fight. Mary and Edith were at each other's throats because they had the same goal: to find a wealthy husband, and they were each other's direct competitors. If they had a brother, he would have been looking for a wife as would have been expected of him at the time and so would not have been competing with them for that particular goal.

Competing over a love interest is a common rivalry regardless of whether the competing characters are related. As long as the characters are looking for someone of the opposite sex as a partner, they're competing with others of the same sex and not with the opposite sex. (Gay characters would not actually flip this dynamic because they're still competing with the same sex, it's just that they're looking for someone of the same sex as well. The only way you could flip this is if you bring at least one bisexual character into the mix, because then for example you could have a configuration of a man and a woman competing over either a man or a woman.)

My more general point here is that we are more likely to see men and women competing with the same sex, whether that's because of societal constraints, romantic preferences or their own expectations. You'd expect parents to compete with parents, for example, and while that's true in a broad sense, wherever there are different expectations of what it means to be a good mother vs what it means to be a good father, characters are going to be competing against other mothers or other fathers.

There's also a question of equality. We tend to compete with people who are roughly equal to us in whatever sense (e.g. financially), because we've already beaten those below or they're not in the same game, and trying to compete with someone more powerful is... well, a bad idea. Charles and Erik's conflict is fundamentally a philosophical one so in theory there's no reason why one of them couldn't be a woman. But I think one reason they're not is to do with a desire on the part of writers to make rivals match. For characters in a setting where men and women aren't treated equally, adding in a opposite-sex dynamic could change the power balance.

Add that to writers' love of mirroring and parallels, and so many rivalries are between characters who could be described as two sides of the same coin. Essentially, the more similar two characters are, the more potent their rivalry. Katherine and Elena are literally identical! The Master is the Doctor's evil counterpart.

Actually, it's worth taking a moment to consider the Doctor and the Master because this is a really interesting example where both characters have male and female incarnations. Does the male Doctor/female Master dynamic come across differently to female Doctor/male Master, and how does that compare to the male Doctor and Master? Ask yourself why the Master literally took over Earth and decimated its people before the Doctor stopped him, versus Missy whose goal was to _give_ the Doctor an army and who later surrendered and was taken prisoner by him. It's the same character! But Missy stopped competing with the Doctor and started trying to come around to his worldview which is the thing they fundamentally clash on. Her last moments were choosing to stand with the Doctor. Don't get me wrong, I love that arc. Loved it. But is it significant that the Master's redemption arc happened with Missy? And now that we have Thirteen and a male Master, they're back to being enemies. One thing that struck me about the Thirteen/Master dynamic is how little reciprocity there is from her end. She's very cold to him; she doesn't reach out. Is there a reluctance to potentially compromise the moral integrity of the heroine by showing her welcoming the Master's company in any way? It's hard to say whether the gender dynamics have any impact on the writing here or if these differences are simply the result of different writers with different views on the Doctor/Master relationship.

So far I've talked about situations where sex does make a difference in whether or not characters are competing with each other. On the other hand, there are situations where sex is less relevant and mixed groups of men and women do compete with each other to achieve the same goal (e.g. for a job). One that springs to mind is Daenerys seeing Jon Snow as a rival for the Iron Throne in _Game of Thrones_, but the show needed to consider and then remove the obvious solution (marriage) first. They start out as love interests and only become outright enemies when that relationship falls apart.

Which brings us back to Daenerys and Sansa. During Season 8 the show deliberately pushed a rivalry between Daenerys and Sansa rather than only pitting Daenerys against Jon Snow even though Sansa doesn't have any claim to the Iron Throne. They're competing for power over the North, but category-wise they're both young female rulers and that also makes them rivals for Jon's loyalty. There could be a king and a queen, but there can't be two queens. It's no surprise that they aren't friends.

Personally, I embrace the competition. Fandom doesn't tend to have a problem with male/male rivalries as far as I can tell, other than sometimes finding them tiresome. Let the women compete too. Daenerys and Sansa are a legitimate threat to each other: I enjoyed watching them size each other up. It's interesting!


End file.
